Please Please Me
Please Please Me was the studio album by The Beatles. It was released on 22 March 1963. Besides Love Me Do, P.S I Love You, Please Please Me and Ask Me Why (which were recorded in 1962), the whole album was recorded in February 1963. Many of the songs were previously performed in earlier concerts, such as the Cavern or in the Star Club in Hamburg. Furthermore, Love Me Do did not feature Ringo's drumming but instead featured professional drummer Andy White for the album. Ringo's drumming appeared on the single version however. Track listing Side one #I Saw Her Standing There #Misery #Anna (Go to Him) #Chains #Boys #Ask Me Why #Please Please Me Side two #Love Me Do #P.S I Love You #Baby It's You #Do You Want to Know a Secret #A Taste of Honey #There's a Place #Twist and Shout Recording Nationwide interest in the Beatles had been piqued with the success of their second UK single and Parlophone Records, hoping to take advantage of this, promptly decided to follow it up with an album. Consequently, their record producer, George Martin, urgently needed ten more tracks if he was to include the four sides ("Love Me Do" / "P.S. I Love You" and "Please Please Me" / "Ask Me Why") of the group's first two singles: “I asked them what they had which we could record quickly, and the answer was their stage act” Martin said (the norm for British 12" vinyl pop albums in 1963 was to have seven songs on each side whereas American albums usually had five or six songs per side). Having established that the Cavern Club was unsuitable for live recording purposes they were booked into EMI Studios in Abbey Road and recorded live there instead. Martin said, "It was a straightforward performance of their stage repertoire – a broadcast, more or less." Initially, a morning and afternoon session only were booked; the evening session was added later. Therefore, at 10:00 am on Monday, 11 February 1963, the Beatles began working their way through their live set song by song, the number of takes varying on each, and finished at 10:45 pm – less than 13 hours later – capturing in essence an authentic representation of the band's Cavern Club-era sound. The day ended with a cover of "Twist and Shout", which had to be recorded last because John Lennon had a particularly bad cold and Martin feared the throat-shredding vocal would ruin Lennon's voice for the day. This performance, caught on the first take, prompted Martin to say: "I don't know how they do it. We've been recording all day but the longer we go on the better they get. Mark Lewisohn later wrote: "There can scarcely have been 585 more productive minutes in the history of recorded music". Paul McCartney double-tracked his vocal on "A Taste of Honey" and Lennon added harmonica onto "There's a Place" during these sessions. Martin overdubbed piano on "Misery" and celesta on "Baby It's You" on 20 February, during which the Beatles were not present. The song "Hold Me Tight" was recorded during the sessions, but was "surplus to requirements" and not included on the album. "Hold Me Tight" was recorded again on 12 September 1963 for With the Beatles. The whole day's session cost approximately £400 (equivalent to £8,200 in 2018). Martin said: "There wasn't a lot of money at Parlophone. I was working to an annual budget of £55,000." This budget had to cover all of the artists on Martin's roster. Individually, under a contract with the Musicians' Union, each Beatle collected a £7 10s (£7.50 or £154 in 2018) session fee for each three-hour session (10:00 am – 1:00 pm / 2:30 pm – 5:30 pm / 7:30 pm – 10:30 pm). Before deciding on the title Please Please Me, Martin considered calling the album Off the Beatle Track, a title he would later use for his own orchestral album of Beatles songs. The album was recorded on a two-track BTR tape machine with most of the instruments on one track and the vocals on the other, allowing Martin to better balance the two in the final mono mix. A stereo mix was also made with one track on the left channel and the other on the right, as well as an added layer of reverb to better blend the two tracks together. The two tracks generally divided the instrumental track from the vocals, with the exception of "Boys", in which the close proximity of Ringo's drums to his vocal microphone placed the drums (but not the other instruments) on the vocal channel. Category:Albums